In the prior art, it is common practice to give each visitor or the like an identity badge, either in advance or else when seeking entry to the show. Said badge may include a logo specific to the show in question together with data relating to the visitor, for example the visitor's full name. Badges are frequently issued only after visitors have provided data concerning their own identities, the identities of organizations they represent, their functions within such organizations, etc.
The main advantages of this practice are firstly to ensure that the people roaming the show premises are suitable, in order to avoid fraud and the presence of undesirable people, and secondly to have the opportunity, when issuing badges, of establishing a global visitor or personality file which can be of great value in particular when the show is a trade show having a well-targeted clientele.
However, in all types of show or fair, and regardless of whether entry is computerized or not, there remain constraints on all visitors whenever they make contact with an exhibitor. Obviously exhibitors, who are usually there for commercial reaons, are interested in a whole series of facts about each visitor, and as a result, whenever visitors make contact with exhibitors, they need to fill in questionnaires giving the desired information (organization, function, etc.).
Thus, during a visit to a show, visitors may fill in tens of exhibitor forms, each time giving essentially the same information, and this is in addition to any information that they may have given in order to gain access to the show.
Further, current systems making use of a global file for preselecting visitors (e.g. by posting invitations, etc.) are generally rigid in that no means are provided for verifying whether any given potential visitor shows interest in a particular show by visiting it regularly, or whether the visitor is no longer interested and never goes there. It will be understood that it would be advantageous to be able to remove such uninterested visitors from the file in order to update it, e.g. every year.
The present invention seeks to mitigate these drawbacks of the prior art and proposes an installation for managing the "visitor" resource (or like resources) in an exhibition such as a trade show or fair, thereby providing greater visitor comfort and also greater effectiveness in the contacts made between exhibitors and visitors.
A secondary object of the invention is to provide such an installation which makes it possible to provide improved monitoring of the interest which visitors show in a particular exhibition.